Care for the vulnerable is a great hallmark of Christian witness

COMMENT

The hands of the clock tick forward, not backward. Time only moves in one direction. By the time you finish this sentence, you’ll already be about five seconds older than when you started it, not five seconds younger. This present life is a one-way ticket in the direction of old age.

“The measure of a civilisation is how it treats its weakest members” is a quote that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but it has been repeated, in one form or another, by many others. Human weakness, of course, takes many forms: illness, disability, poverty, homelessness, educational disadvantage, loneliness. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid falling into some kind of weakness; the very last thing we want is to be described as one of society’s ‘weakest members’.

The fact of the matter is, however – as Professor John Wyatt memorably describes it –  that every one of us spends significant portions of our lives as our civilisation’s ‘weakest members’. The newborn baby is only marginally less dependent on his or her mother than the unborn child, and a state of weakness and need continues for several years. But at the other end of life, for greater or lesser duration, a similar state of weakness exists. Professor Wyatt has spoken movingly of how, in a nursing home, as he spooned food into his elderly mother’s mouth, he remembered how she had done the same for him when he was a small child. This is entirely consistent with what Scripture says: Paul instructs the children and grandchildren of widows to “first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God” (1 Tim. 5:4).

‘Historic’ Bill

Recently, it was announced that Kim Leadbeater, MP for Spen Valley in West Yorkshire, will introduce a Choice at the End of Life Bill to the House of Commons. The first debate is apparently going to take place on Friday 29 November. This follows hard on the heels of a similar Bill in the House of Lords introduced by Lord Falconer (now withdrawn in favour of the Leadbeater Bill), and a public undertaking from the Prime Minister that the subject of assisted suicide would receive ample parliamentary time.

Many affirming voices are being heard. Lord Falconer himself has said: “I look forward to working with Kim and colleagues across both Houses to ensure that a safe, compassionate assisted dying law is passed.” Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, described this Bill as “a historic opportunity to bring about real change for dying people”.

The likelihood is that the Bill would allow a terminally ill adult who is reckoned to have six months or fewer to live, and who is deemed to be of sound mental competency, to obtain medical help to end his or her own life. Assisted suicide (sometimes euphemistically – and inaccurately – referred to as assisted dying) is therefore different to euthanasia, in which, ordinarily, a medical professional administers a lethal injection. This Bill, then, appeals to individual human choice, to a dying patient’s self-determination about how they choose to end their lives.

But many other voices are being raised in opposition. The former Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson is one of many who believe that this legislation would mark the beginning of a treacherously slippery slope, believing that “legislating for assisted suicide and/or euthanasia has a psychological and practical effect on the lives of disabled people”, and that “many disabled people fear that to show any signs of melancholy, struggle with their disability, or frustration with their suffering, would be to affirm a wish to die”.

Many sinister stories have emerged from Canada, where both assisted suicide and euthanasia became legal in 2016 (the whole package is known as Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAiD): veterans being offered ‘assisted suicide kits’ when they requested stairlifts in their homes; a man suffering from a degenerative brain disorder who was frequently offered euthanasia and reminded how much his health care was costing; a woman who suffers from ME and intends to call for a doctor to administer MAiD when her money runs out. The number of people in Canada who die each year as a result of MAiD has risen from 1,018 to 13,241 in just six years.

Dignity at the end of life

Back in the UK, the proposed Bill on assisted suicide is a Private Members’ Bill; no party in the Commons will be ‘whipped’ into backing it. When similar legislation was debated in 2015, a four-hour debate witnessed a great deal of cross-party opposition, with the Bill being defeated at its Second Reading by 330 to 118 votes. Of course, the make-up of Parliament has changed since then. We need the current crop of MPs to see through the arguments of those advancing the cause of assisted suicide. They need to be getting sensible, brief, compelling letters from those of us who are concerned about what legalising assisted suicide would mean for the most vulnerable people in our society.

If we are to do this we need to think carefully about the issue ourselves.

Is it really more ‘dignified’ to die when we choose, where we choose, with whom we choose and how we choose? This question should not be answered flippantly. Which of us would prefer to endure long drawn-out months and years of chronic pain, degenerative brain function, mounting financial costs, and being a burden on many people’s time, energy and resources? Which of us would have the heart to object if an elderly, suffering relative requested the right to end their lives?

I can do no better than direct readers to an article by John Piper entitled The Dignity of Those with Dementia. Piper says:

“The honor [due to every human being] is not flowing from their unique moral condition but from their unique standing in the image of God, different from all other creatures. That applies to an 80-pound, arthritic, diapered, drooling, glazed-eyed human being that we love, lying in bed and praying for death in the nursing home, or in the jungle hut.”

Piper’s father suffered from dementia at the end of his life. He discovered that “the encroachment of dementia in the lives of those we love is a gift to us. It tests our love as never before”. He continues:

“Such challenges of love are no accident. They are no accident. God didn’t dream that into my life for nothing. That was a painful gift to me and a test. We all will have them, so let us be full of grace as we give ourselves to care for those who have become too weak physically or mentally to care for themselves.”

Amen and Amen! God cares for the weak of this world, when others don’t; the care for the vulnerable has always been a great hallmark of Christian witness. And that includes, of course, the elderly among us all. The Psalmist prays:

Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.

And:

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and grey hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.
(Psalm 71:9, 17-18)

Guest feature by Paul Yeulett, Minister at Grove Chapel, London.